military

With President Obama heading over to South Korea for an international nuclear summit I figured it would be a good opportunity to try and catch Air Force 1 on the MWARA HF frequencies. Not knowing their exact route it was the matter of guessing on the frequencies to monitor, therefore I parked radios on 5667 kHz for Tokyo Radio and another on 6655 kHz for San Francisco Radio and hoped for the best.

Well….Got lucky this time around! Just before 1400 UTC Air Force 1 came up on 6655 kHz USB to give position and request selcal check from San Francisco Radio. He reported CPDLC on R580 at FL320 with a destination of RKSO (Osan Air Base). At 165E they would be handed over to Tokyo Radio, however by this time the sun was rising and reception to the far east was beginning to diminish.

Here is the recording of Air Force 1 and San Francisco Radio in comms.

Interesting digital sounding voice comms monitored last night on 4739 kHz in USB. Apparently this was a crosspatch being utilized by the US Navy TOC in Jacksonville, FL, allowing transmissions from a UHF net to be heard by their players on HF. I am told this was a DAMA voice channel and the robotic sounding comms are 2.4kbps ANDVT.

New messages on 10405 kHz regarding arms embargo ops being conducted by NATO. The signal was heavily jammed but still able to hear what’s being said for the most part. This was recorded using a remote receiver in Switzerland. Special thanks goes out to the great folks on Utility DXers Forum for the heads up.

Lately there has been some exciting stuff monitored from the Mediterranean region out of Libya. One of them being the Commando Solo broadcasts from a Lockheed EC-130J aircraft c/s “Steel 74″operating in the region. Part of the mission has been to broadcast warning messages to the Libyan Navy advising sailors to leave their ships or face deadly consequences. Frequencies 6877 and 10405 kHz USB have been used over the past week.

Earlier today I picked up comms from Canforce 3804 wkg Trenton Military on 11232 kHz. This is a Canadian Air Force CC-177 registration # 177703. Flight was en route Ottawa to Malta probably to pick up evacuees from Libya.

Bloodhound 300, Bloodhound 701, 401 and 442 wkg Surveillance on 8000 kHz USB this past Monday (2/21) coordinating vessel movements within a hazard area for a missile test off the coast of Southern California. The Arrow 2 missile defense system test is a joint exercise between the United States and Israel that intercepted and destroyed a simulated Iranian ballistic missile threat.

Around sunset the stations switched over to frequency 2781.5 kHz USB for the remainder of the exercise. It was definitely an exciting event to monitor!

Here is a recording of radio traffic monitored on 8000 kHz USB. In the clip you will hear aircraft passing details about several vessels, and trying to deal with a stubborn captain refusing to alter his course!

I have been hearing Japanese comms on 5690 USB lately. Last night I monitored what sounded like JJN6 wkg 1BM giving weather conditions for Nagasaki. I have also noticed that the stations occasionally exchange what sounds like RTTY data in between voice comms. The frequency can be heard from California most nights between 0800z and 1200z.

Token from the RadioReference forums reported an air intercept exercise on 11190 kHz USB. I tuned the radio and sure enough there it was. I was not able to hear all parties, but had a good signal from a unit identifying as Tango. He was in comms w/ Romeo Whiskey. Other folks around the western USA also reported hearing this net.

For anyone listening to the HFGCS frequencies yesterday, they probably noticed the increased amount of EAM’s (Emergency Action Messages) and other traffic. These comms were related to the U.S. Strategic Command nuclear command & control exercise called Global Thunder. To learn more about this exercise, read Hooligan’s informative post on the RadioReference forums.

Welcome! Here you will find frequencies, reception logs and recordings for HF utility stations and UHF satcom. All of the logs and audio clips posted here are monitored from my location in Riverside County, California.